Rachel Douglas Jul 13, 2016:

But there's often a copyright/legality issue in omitting a secondary source. For example, maybe the news was only on the subscription wire feed from Interfax. You don't have a paid sub to Interfax. The secondary source does. It's proper, therefore, to retain the citation of the secondary source. In the given case, the question did not provide enough info, to know if there's only one secondary source (although usually sentences citing one are in the active voice - https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q="Со ссылкой на Интерфак... or multiple secondary sources, in which case "it is being reported that" or "there are reports that" plus "citing Interfax" would work.

Susan Welsh Jul 13, 2016:

intermediaries I don't think any of that is necessary. The point is what Interfax reported -- unless the text gives some reason to believe that the secondary source made the whole thing up and Interfax actually didn't report it. If this were an article written in English and I were editing it, I would pull out the "weeds" and streamline it.

danya Jul 13, 2016:

some hair-splitting to be ablsoutely accurate, the source text does not say "according to", it says "it is reported according to", so another intermediary appears in the chain